Is House Speaker Mike Johnson the New Manchurian Candidate?

Is House Speaker Mike Johnson the New Manchurian Candidate?

Or Could that Even be Donald Trump?

Ever since WWII, Russia, in one of its many autocratic governmental configurations, has been one of America’s greatest enemies… with only a brief post-Berlin-Wall take down that began in the 1990s. Russia blockaded Berlin shortly after that war. Her pilots flew MIG-15s against UN/US jets in the Korean War. Her ships unloaded ballistic missiles in Cuba in 1962. After Vladimir Putin ascended to leadership in 1999, he slowly unveiled his ambition to reassemble the former Soviet Republics, which had spun off into independent states, into as much of the old USSR as he could. Conflicts in Chechnya and Georgia, his support of autocracy in Belarus (under the unpopular Alexander Lukashenko) and his general saber-rattling were clear statements to the region that he was exercising traditional Russian and Soviet hegemony over the region… and he was totally against anything that America wanted anywhere. Especially NATO.

Bolstered by rising oil revenues (OPEC added Russia to form what is known as OPEC+), Putin abrogated treaties – notably a treaty with Ukraine that this now independent state would surrender its nuclear arsenal to Moscow in exchange for a Russian pledge to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty – and supported our enemies and policies wherever he could. He single-handedly kept the brutal Assad regime in power in Syria against a popular insurrection (which began in 2011) and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. His political opponents were serially exterminated (most recently Alexei Navalny), even as many fled Russia. Iran, our Middle Eastern nemesis, is supplying Moscow with weapons these days. Money has continually flowed into Putin’s offshore coffers and to his favored oligarchs. Some say corruption has made Putin the richest man on earth.

A sleepy NATO awoke. The mutual military defense organization realized that it would have to reinstate its Soviet era policy of containment against this toxic and brutal Putin regime. NATO reignited its military preparedness and offered American hope that its allies would aid in countering this obvious Russian threat. But Putin’s blank check of “whatever I need to do” to control my nation drew the envious attraction of then President Donald Trump. Perhaps this level of autocracy without limits is at the basis of Trump absurd claim of absolute and perpetual immunity from criminal prosecution was inspired by Putin’s power. His admiration for Putin continues unabated; his statement to his NATO allies that unless they paid 2% of the GDP into NATO, the United States should ignore its mutual treaty pledges, and that Putin could do “whatever the hell he wants” with those nations terrified our European allies. Was this just his view that a balance sheet was more import than obvious strategic benefits to us. Or part of his worship of Putin’s autocratic powers.

And so aid to Ukraine, which most believe is the least expensive deterrent to Russian expansionism, is now on the MAGA GOP chopping block. Countering Russian aggression and global ambitions has been at the top of every Republican and Democratic presidential priority list since WWII. Until Donald Trump. As rightwing white supremacists feel that representative democracy is diluting their traditional power, Trump’s constituency has adopted serious voting restrictions to marginalize non-white traditional voters, with a clear realization that maintaining white power would not happen unless democracy itself were repealed. Russia offers a form of repressive governance that, if adopted in the United States, would reinforce incumbent white power as the primary controllers of our nation.

It is interesting to note the excuses some Republicans in Congress, uncomfortable as the Party unseating Reagan’s efforts to contain Russian autocrats: “About 2 a.m. Feb. 13, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin stood on the Senate floor and explained why he opposed sending more aid to help Ukraine fend off the invasion launched in 2022 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘I don’t like this reality,’ Johnson said. ‘Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal.’ But he quickly added: ‘Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.’… That argument — that the Russian president cannot be stopped so there’s no point in using American taxpayer dollars against him — marks a new stage in the Republican Party’s growing acceptance of Russian expansionism in the age of Donald Trump.” Nicholas Riccardi writing for the February 20th Associated Press.

Is Trump’s vision of the United States Putin’s greatest enabler? Are Trump’s “whatever you want” minions coconspirators in Trump’s vision of an autocratic America, and eventual ally of Russia? “Now the GOP’s ambivalence on Russia has stalled additional aid to Ukraine at a pivotal time in the war… The Senate last week passed a foreign aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine on a 70-29 vote, but Johnson was one of a majority of the Republicans to vote against the bill after their late-night stand to block it. In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker Mike Johnson said his chamber will not be ‘rushed’ to pass the measure, even as Ukraine’s military warns of dire shortages of ammunition and artillery.

“Many Republicans are openly frustrated that their colleagues don’t see the benefits of helping Ukraine. Putin and his allies have banked on democracies wearying of aiding Kyiv, and Putin’s GOP critics warn that NATO countries in Eastern Europe could become targets of an emboldened Russia that believes the U.S. won’t counter it… The divide within the party was on stark display Friday with the prison death of Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption advocate Alexei Navalny, which President Biden and other world leaders blamed on Putin. Trump notably stood aside from that chorus Monday.

“Offering no sympathy or attempt to affix blame, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that the ‘sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.’” AP. It would be one thing if the MAGA crowd were just pushing issues; but it is quite something else where their ambitions are to install a new form of autocracy to replace our existing form of governance. We seem to have installed our own Manchurian Candidate within our own political system. Some Republicans are squirming at what Trump/Johnson want Congress to do. We need more than squirming!

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless Americans wake up to what is happening and fight back, there may be no way to fight back after the upcoming election.